The Power of God and the Creation of the Universe

In defining the creation of the universe scientists have estimated that between 13 and 14 billion years ago a mass of hot, dense primordial matter somehow condensed and exploded. That explosion expanded to create billions of galaxies each containing billions of stars. They have termed this event The Big Bang Theory. Several factors are lacking in this theory. Scientists have never offered an explanation of what created the mass itself or caused it to condense and suddenly ignite in the first place but it seems the description 'Big Bang' is an extraordinary understatement. To put things into comparison, take note of a scientific experiment that took place recently.

A few weeks ago the world's largest particle accelerator called The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), 17 miles in circumference, located underground at the French/Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland completed the first successful collision of two protons which had been accelerated to a velocity approaching the speed of light. The energy produced by this collision was equal to 7 trillion electronvolts. Two small protons, the nucleus of two single atoms. The LHC was built at a cost of over 10-Billion dollars for the explicit purpose of trying to recreate on an infinitely small scale what took place at the moment of The Big Bang. Yet scientists still cannot answer the question about what brought The Big Bang about or created the spark that set it off. But for now, just imagine the energy that was produced at the moment of the creation of the universe when compared to the impact of two colliding protons!

What follows is my own somewhat fanciful explanation of how the universe was created. The concept of time, distance, size and place have no meaning in this document. In the terms of Infinite, there is no beginning and no end. The words in the Bible that refer to God as in human terms as "our Heavenly Father" or "in His image" are not meant to be taken literally. So are my references to His hands. Read it with an open mind.

One day in a place I will call Heaven (because those who believe in God believe that is where He is) God had an idea. He decided to make something very eloquent out of something so common that it exists everywhere, dust. If one is to postulate a belief in God then one must also recognize that God is the source of all things material and immaterial. God is the creator of the Laws that govern the universe as well. On that day in Heaven, God gathered up some dust in His hands and He squeezed it together and the force of His grasp condensed and heated the dust. Binding this mass together, God infused it with the Laws of Physics that He had also created and decided should apply. God then created a place outside of Heaven to put this little tiny mass so He could watch and see it grow. And God enjoyed His handiwork. After a time, not the same concept of time as we know it, the glowing embers of dust followed the Laws of Physics it had been given, it expanded into the galaxies and stars that we see today. The Universe had been created and God was filled with joy over His work.

God looked at his handiwork which pleased Him so much and chose a small planet circling a dim yellow star in an obscure rim of one of the galaxies and decided to populate that planet with another idea, Life. Now to understand the concept of time it is necessary to consider that time from God's perspective is most certainly not the same as from the perspective of mere living things. To put things rather bluntly, God does not wear a wristwatch so the length of a unit of time to God is not the same as it is to us. We humans have a document that contains a brief description of what God did when He created the universe. It is The Bible and the first section of this book is called Genesis and it begins with the words: "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth". The passages of Genesis describe the creation of the universe in seven days but consider that the first humans God told this story to had no concept of science as we have today so the description was given is a greatly simplified form. There is something else in The Bible that I believe, that the message found in Genesis is like a legal document. That is to say, anything that isn't mentioned did not happen. 

God's plan for his human creation was filled with infinite wisdom. He had decided to let human curiosity seek out knowledge about things they observed. As stated by the poet Robert Browning, "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for.". So the moon and the stars traveling across the sky in such precise mathematical precision became a learning tool that taught humans to measure the seasons for agriculture and Galileo about the planets orbit around the sun and early seafarers how to navigate the open seas. 

Many people today try to trivialize the human existence and the wisdom and existence of God by saying that life must exist elsewhere in the universe if the same conditions that helped create it on Earth are found. As if to say a mere combination of chemical elements in a pool of water that have produced some slime would evolve into a living organism that would further evolve into intelligent life. There are many strange ideas in the world today, some come from people who believe they are doing good work. Some of those have decided that adding up together all the ages mentioned in The Bible means that we humans were created 6,000 years ago and because of that we must have walked the Earth along with the dinosaurs. These same people believe that God must have carried a wristwatch when He told the first humans how He created everything in 7 days. What is a "day" to God anyway? To us it could probably be a billion years. Those who believe in a 6,000 year old earth are called the Young Earth Believers. They used to call fossils strange looking rocks and have no explanation to describe how living matter can decompose and transform by a process called mineralization only because the existence of fossils contradicts some of their other ideas.

I am an an avid fan of science fiction. In my lifetime I have seen hundreds of movies based on science fiction ideas and of worlds populated by other beings. My favorite all time movies are the Star Wars saga, Star Trek, Avatar and The Abyss and too many more to be counted. In spite of this fascination with the science fiction genre I hold a very unusual belief. That is that we humans and all the living creatures on Earth are the only lifeforms in the universe. Not just the only intelligent lifeforms but the only lifeforms, period. I truly believe that God created the universe for the enlightenment of mankind, to stimulate our thirst for knowledge and for us to seek out, explore and to learn.

I do not believe that God hedged His bet when He created us by creating other forms of life elsewhere to see which one turned out better. I believe we are His only act of creation and because of that, we hold a very special place in His eyes.  I can only wonder what human philosophers would think if this idea were commonly held. If the human race were so special would we act the way we do today? God forbid those who do evil things in His Name.

(If you have read this prior to May 12, 2010 then please read it again for this work has been in various stages of progress for several days and this is the final version.)